New Year, New Posts

Yeah, I realize I'm a slacker. But I promise to try and post at least pictures on here regularly so you can see what's going on....

Spent New Year's strolling down Duval St. in Key West with Kip and our British friend Chris. It was a fantastic voyage through bars with cheap but strong drinks, glittering beads raining down on our heads, and many spectactularly dressed trannies. Even awkwardly sleeping in the car and having to drive back and forth among islands to pick up our fallen comrade didn't take away from an amazing experience.

I hope you all had wonderful holidays and your New Year has begun with a bang! Enjoy the pics!

Sas

I love you a lot, with all of my soul.....without you I'm nothing, a butterless roll.

I watched Mr. Deeds today and that line just made me laugh and laugh so despite it's complete inadequacy as a description of my NY trip I made it my title so I can keep laughing and laughing.

I spent this past week in New York visiting with my MaleBFF Jackass Ronnie. After some trouble with the airlines (randomly cancelled flight and then majorly delayed alternate flight) I made it to his place around 2am Monday evening. My darling Jackass Ronnie picked me up at the airport and shuttled me back to his place with a rather limited amount of bitching and a lot of scary driving.

[Actually those are both blatent lies. I have the texts to prove the bitching and my heart is still in my throat from the driving. But he showed up, which is a Huge Bonus.]

I have absolutely no pictures of my trip, mainly because A) I forgot to grab my camera each and every time we left the house and B) I simply had too much fun every single minute and didn't want to see my city/peeps from behind a viewfinder. I'd have to say this was the best trip I've had to NY thus far, even beating the time I went with college friends over spring break and we were accosted by homeless people and crazy cabbies.

Tuesday was spent literally playing video games alllll day long in Ron's basement. I realize that to probably 99% of you reading this that sounds like an absolutely retarded use of vacation-time-in-NY but honestly this trip wasn't really about seeing the city (which I've done many many times before) but more about seeing my boy who I missed terribly over the last few months. After watching him slay an infinite amount of creepy looking creatures, we switched over to something more my style (Mario Party) and he beat me mercilessly twice.

Oh, and our breakfast consisted of steak (one for each of us), pigs in blankets, yogurt (him), banana (me), and a bagel with cream cheese (me) and lox (him). I love when a boy makes me a Proper Breakfast.

[Side Note: I only made one mistake using the wrong knife for my cream cheese. Which is actually a pretty bad one from what I understand. So perhaps that's not something to be proud of...whatevs.]

Tuesday night we went into the city to meet up with some of his friends for dinner/drinks. I have to admit, I was incredibly curious to meet these people who put up with him. They were not what I was expecting at all (read: nice and friendly and not mean). We had Thai for dinner (yum!) and then made our way down to the Hotel Gansevoort in the meat packing district for some drinks. My Godmother's son Ariel works in the rooftop bar there and I always make it a point to visit him.

Doesn't look like much meat packing is done here.

I was quite amused watching Ron and Mike drink their grapefruit cosmos which were Super Yummy but also pink and served in martini glasses. Apparently in the city it's not very uncommon for hetero men to walk around sporting frou-frou drinks, but from this southern girl's perspective they were standing way too close to each other while drinking them.

Wednesday I worked off my hangover with a fantastic breakfast in Ron's town (I can still taste that bagel and not in a bad way) and then spent the day pretty much the same way as before. You may say we were wasting time. I call it our Bonding Time.

Wednesday night we headed back into the city, with the intention of sleeping over in a friend's apartment. This freed us up for some massive drinking without the perils of driving. Dinner was at a very pricey but super yummy steakhouse, where I ate a fillet the size of my head. Well, I ate like 80% of it and Ron picked up the scraps. We transitioned at another friend of Ron's, then mosied over to a nondescript bar for many libations and much debauchery. I'm a little fuzzy on the how we got home but I believe it involved some walking and perhaps a cab ride.

By the way, did I mention the fact that it was absolutely freezing cold the entire week and I'm from Florida where its never freezing cold and where you also can't buy boots or sweaters or coats past February and all I had to wear were these strappy black heels that are completely awesome except when its freezing cold? They mocked me.

On the plus side at least I have a fabulous tan. I can't tell you how much people remarked on my pre-cancerous skin. With awe and envy. Sigh. I truly believe the only benefit to the cold in my opinion is the absolute need for a completely different wardrobe. I mean, when it's warm all year round it's hard to have an excuse to buy 'seasonal' clothes. I love pea coats and trenches, but really when the temp doesn't drop past 60 all year round what is the point?

On the other hand, I did get to wear my Super Awesome knitted scarf and gloves. I actually finished the other glove on the plane ride up to NY. Again, lots of mocking from the locals who have glaringly white extremely thick skin.

Oh, and thanks to all of the very sweet NY Boys who continued to argue with me about my age, even after jackass Ronnie happily confirmed it. I love you all and will have your babies/marry you/whatevs.

Anyhow, Thursday we took our time getting moving in the morning (we were a bit "fragile") and I headed out to have lunch with Elisabeth (Ariel's mom). The boys met us down there for coffee and then we three headed over to the Natural History museum for some geeking out. I'm pretty sure Mike was quite annoyed amused by our absolute retardedness childlike fun around science and animals. I mean, who doesn't like hanging out with two people who name and describe the history of every single purebred dog they walk by? Way Super Fun.

Thursday night we returned to Ron's hood for some local sushi (holyshititwasamazing) and drinks. I was coerced (serious coercion, I swear) into playing Beer Pong for the first time in my life (I swear, first time!). I was dumbfounded by the professional beer pong tables (my previous knowledge only seeing plywood sheets on sawhorses...ah, Island Life) and after a rough start and some encouragement from my partner Mike we kicked ass three times. I came to love this game, since as we all know I Love Beer, but it was difficult to understand the concept of winning the game does not equal I get to drink all of the beer. Boo.

Um, yeah....anyone else get the HeeBeeGeeBees when you watch peeps routinely cleanse the ping pong ball in the same glass of icky water? I'm really glad I had those pre-game drinks so my brain wasn't fully recognizing the germiness at that moment.

Friday morning was a quick steak breakfast (I heart you Ron) and off to fight traffic for the flight home. I have to admit, I had sooooo much fun on this trip that I seriously considered "missing" my flight home just so I could stay in the city that much longer. But as a "grown-up" person I had to understand that at this moment that is just not happening.

But you can bet your ass I will be back.

And I will ROCK some beer pong/steakhouses/general debauchery.

It is SO on.

Le Sigh.

Pop Quiz: Do you take the Super Awesome but Expensive Canal View or the Super Cheap Ass Dump View (and by dump I mean quite literally)?

That is quite literally the longest title I've ever used and it's awesome and I won't change it (mom) no matter how offensive the word Ass may be perceived.

This is The Super Cheap Ass Dump View.

I really wanted to send this pic by itself to FR (who's blog is ironically titled This Place is a Dump!) and say 'I found our new apartment check out the view!' but I'm pretty sure she would have strangled me in my sleep.

And that wouldn't really be a healthy start to our roommate relationship, now would it?

Got back from The GC today. What a difference! I have mixed feelings about this place, to be honest. On one hand, its very much as if I won't be leaving home - the environment reminds me very much of St. Petersburg Beach in Florida but perhaps at three times the cost. However, the development is so high that the island has significantly lost its "Caribbean Island" feel that you get from some other places. We didn't get to explore the tail of the island (basically anything beyond Seven Mile Beach and its immediate neighbors), which may give space for adventurous exploration.

We arrived on Monday afternoon, and set about driving around to get our bearings of the various recommended neighborhoods for living and their respective location with reference to the school. It was a very weird feeling to get back on the left side of the road, more so because this time was behind a right-hand drive car.

These things are so damn cute.



I cannot count how many times I turned on the wipers when trying for the blinkers or put my right hand down by the door to try and shift...

Dinner that night was at the hotel restaurant, which boasted The Best Burgers on Island and they were right. I have been dreaming about that burger ever since. The bill, however, was quite surprising; it will take some time to get used to this exchange rate! My burger was about $8.95 CI (Cayman Island dollars) and that converts to a little over $11 USD!! The local beer Caybrew was $4.60 CI a bottle, about $5.75 USD.

Sticker shock continued to follow us as we investigated apartments (typically around $1800 CI/mth for a 2 bedroom), groceries, and cars. Cars were interesting because they were unusually reasonable (for islands, anyhow). We met a particularly...slick...salesman who has obviously worked with students in the past and has come up with an interesting scheme plan that provides students with guaranteed fixing of any issues while they have the car as well as guaranteed buyback at a previously agreed upon depreciation value. Sounds great on the outset, but when you do the math there are some potential kinks in the concept.

Tuesday we ran all over town meeting with various landlords and Realtors and tenants. We narrowed our list down to 5 options with prices all over the board as well as different pros/cons. Dinner that night involved dad and I listing out all of our considerations in an apartment and rating the five according to a very common insanely OCD system that pretty much only he and I understand.

Insane.

We know our rating system was unbiased since the one we were both in love with did not make the #1 slot. So we scrapped our list for a more favorable solution of posting a vote on my blog majority rules. After dinner activities included late-night email and picture swapping with FR to make sure the majority actually included her (it so did).

Ours is upstairs on the left (the one where it looks like my dad may hit his head on the balcony).

Our backyard.



Le Sigh.

Wednesday we had a tour with the school scheduled for 9am. Dad and I faithfully showed at 8:59am, and after about 20 minutes of waiting around decided to start knocking some heads to find out where our tour guide was hiding. Seems he mixed up the times and thought 10am! We had a little chat with the Student Services guy and then caught up with Matt (our guide) for a late but thorough tour of the school. This included a 20 minute drive out to another part of the island called Lower Valley where the Teaching Facility/Surgery Clinic is located.

The Teaching Facility or Surgical Center or whatev. There isn't a sign yet, so really I guess you can call it whatever your heart desires.

Anat lecture and lab. Mmmm....

Surgery and other fun stuff storage.



Horse and Bull area.

Large animal holders. Shut up, that is so the right term.



That little goat you see was playing chicken with...well....a chicken. And that little building you see in the distance is the GC Department of Agriculture/Dog Pound.



Two horses, two goats. Maybe some future sheep. Two clinic dogs. One bull owned by the GC government who was out to stud at the time of filming.

I have mixed thoughts about the school physically, mainly because I've come from such large schools in the past so it's hard to imagine an entire vet school working out of basically 6 office sized rooms and a house-sized Teaching Facility. However with nine students in my class, I doubt very much that we'll be stumbling over each other.

Whoa. Wait. Hold Up. What was that?

NINE?

(As in after 8 and before 10?)

I wish you all could have seen my jaw drop when the Student Services guy laid that one on us. I'm sure the noise was akin to playing egg toss with boulders.

I don't even know where to go with this. That's less people than were in the Von Trap family.

Oh how I wish these uniforms were red. Damn you Lack-of-Photoshop! Damn you!

To steal borrow from my classmate Paul: I'm leaving the room if people in class start randomly bursting out in song.

Anywho, after the tour we were scheduled to meet with some current first semester students for lunch so I could grill them a la CIA intelligence gathering ask them a few questions. However, the theme of the day seemed to be forgetting pre-arranged plans and in classic Saskia-Completely-Overextending-Herself-Style I not only messed up the time but also the place. Dad and I ended up sitting in a pretty neat restaurant called Eat for about a half hour before I finally ran back up to the room (hotel was right behind restaurant) and saw that the girls were sitting is Yoshi (as sushi joint) two doors down from Eat and had been there for at least an hour. I ran back down to the sushi joint, made my introductions/apologies, and begged the last ten minutes of their break to hang over at Eat so dad could meet them.

Needless to say, not such a great First Impression.

After lunch we made our way over to the licensing office to get my official Cayman driver's license! Course, I explained to dad that it more than likely would be a waste of our time since I had no phone/address/visa yet. I think he really just wanted to experience the joy that is Island Bureaucracy. And boy did they not let him down. After waiting in line for about 45 minutes we were told that I could pay for the license now but that I would need to supply my real address and phone number before they print a card or I'll have to pay an extra $20 CI for a card reprint at a later date. Huh. What do you think the chances will be that I'll have absolutely no trouble getting my card with just a paper receipt of payment? Hahahaha.

Plus side? At least the licenses in GC are actually plastic cards like the states instead of just a piece of paper.

After exhausting ourselves at the licensing office, we hung out in the hotel room making last minute decision changes before finally settling on the Super Awesome but Expensive Canal View apartment. Dad was able to negotiate a bit on the rent (awesome) and FR is unbelievably excited about our new digs. There is still the possibility of selling plasma or harvesting eggs in our future, but with some creative budgeting (read: eat nothing but white rice and peanut butter) hopefully neither of us will feel like the creepy Geico eyeballs are watching us.

Thursday morning we got up early so we could run some things over to the apartment and stop by the electric company to hook up the electricity so it'll all be move in ready in a few weeks! Then off to the airport where I'm happy to announce you can purchase Tortuga Dark Rum (98 proof) for a whopping $9 USD. And it's actually legal to bring into the states. Which we found out from the helpful customs guy is not always the case; seems some rums are illegal to bring into the states! Huh.

Sweet.

Overall a very informative and interesting trip. I'm looking forward to trying this island/school on for size.

And I'm pretty sure dad and I are the Harlem Globetrotters of moving to a foreign country.

We were pretty sweet in our time. Not sure what that other dude's name is, but he sure could balance a ball.

(So ghetto. In so many ways.)

Random other shots that didn't really fit into my Epic Novel but that I'm quite sure you are eager to see:

Awesome map of the island courtesy of...oh what was that car rental place....oh, yeah: Avis.

Areas circled in black show you where the top five apartments were located in reference to the school (circle at top). Official Apartment is the one labeled Snug (as in Snug Harbour, the most awesome place ever).

There's this new office park/condos/craziness that went up a few years ago and is only just now being finished. It's called Cabana Bay, and it was built by the family that owns the Dart Polystyrene company. As in basically every styrofoam or paper cup/plate/to-go container/etc. in the world has their name stamped on it.

As in ohmygodtheyhavetooooomuchmoneygivemesomeplease.

I took this pic of a measly garage because isn't the coolest looking garage you've ever seen?

About damn time people start putting some asthetic thought into even the most dismal parts of construction.

I have no idea what this building is but it just screams Dr. Suess.

Or LSD.

Ditto on the screaming LSD/Suess. But a really neat design for a fountain. Hard to see here, but the water constantly runs down the sides and is reused. And those colorful bits in amidst the stones are gorgeous hand blown glass bowls that dad confirmed are not cemented down.

(Note: FR and I are planning a little scavenger hunt there during the twilight hours to furnish our outrageously expensive digs.)

You know who you are and why I took this.

Random shot down a random street in town.



GC squirrels. These suckers are huge and fast as lightning.
I did not find out that last fact by testing them with a chase. I swear.
Please don't sic PETA on me.

Another random shot on a random corner.

One more random.

Click on the pic to see allllll the people. It was crazy. And that was just one of THREE ships parked out there today.

Quick tutorial on Right-Hand Drive.



Dad and I having our 10:30AM airport beer on our way out.

(I cannot begin to understand why all of my programs rotated this picture normally but when I upload it into Blogger it comes out upside down.)

(I can only infer it is meant to be.)

(Not such a flattering pic anyhow, maybe this way our fat will sort of shift.)

Totally snapped this by luck. Have no idea what orientation of the island it is though.



My new roommate. I hear she comes with a pretty cool human.

(No, neither of them was on this trip. But she's just so damn cute.)

By the way...did anyone happen to notice the distinct lack of any beach pics in this entire entry? Oh, yeah...that's because we didn't go there! Despite it being just a quick cross of the road away. Only one quick look at night in the dark. Boo.

Trivialities of Life.

Got my chest X-ray results back today. Here's how the convo with my nurse practitioner went:

Me: So, no TB then.

NP: No, all clear.

Me: Um, great. Listen, can you tell me something? How do my heart & lungs look? Abnormally small perhaps?

NP: Uh...nope. Everything looks good.

Me: Are you absolutely sure? Because I seriously cannot run longer than a fifth of a mile before I am completely and utterly out of breath. I just assumed that since I have abnormally tiny ears that my lungs and heart were just as small.

NP: Hmm.

Then she said something about getting back to work and hung up.

I'm pretty sure the lesson learned here is when you have something as important as an x-ray done, you should have a real doctor review it.

[That was a joke. I do not in any way mean to belittle NPs. I have been seeing this woman for 5 years now and as far as I can tell she is super smart.]

I spoke briefly a bit ago about my upcoming trip with dad to the GC. Dad sorely needs a vacation, and I get to go by default. We'll be looking for a place to live (Miss Kitty puts a serious dent in the available accommodations) that won't suck all remaining pennies from my pocket (seriously. this place is Prada expensive). We'll also be checking out the surroundings, the school, and taking loads of pictures. My mom will be out of town on business, as she is for about 350 days out of the year. Her loss.

Anywho, I'm really looking forward to this trip. It's the first real physical step towards my next adventure. Plus I get to meet the three (yes, three) friends I've met from Facebook. Since I've decided not to pretend to be what I think those people would want me to be and instead to be myself right from the start, I'm pretty sure I've already landed a label along the lines of: "the kooky old lady with a cat." Katie was even kind enough to offer storage space and in return I was kind enough to promise not to fill my bags with illicit substances that may or may not get her visa revoked upon discovery by local police. These people are so lucky to get me, they simply have no idea.

By the way, it's trying desperately to rain today. Which is sort of awesome. Bye Bye Pollen. Sucka.

Back to the Grind.

After a seemingly endless travel day (yay for 9 hour layovers in San Juan!), a few days of move-in madness, and a nice relaxing day at the Marriott that ended in a dead-battery car....we are all ready to tackle 2nd semester.

It's funny how I see people again and it feels like we've been apart for soooo long as opposed to only 2 weeks. This place is definitely some sort of Time Warp.

Even funnier is watching the Newbies wander around with wide fearful eyes! It seems like so long ago that we were those kids. I promise we've kept the hazing to a minimum. For now.

Speaking of Newbies, my best friend Jen from Florida is now a vet prepper here and I'm SO happy to have her here! She's really enjoying herself despite some very entertaining stories of her own adventures during orientation. My particular favorite is her ceiling deciding to pee all over her bed one day after a particularly nasty rainstorm. 2/3 of her bed was soaked through to the bed frame. But all is well, she contacted admin and much to our surprise they had a brand new mattress at her room in 45 minutes. And they paid for her to launder all of her bed linens (which led to some additional amusing anecdotes I won't go into)! All is well for now, however I'm not sure they've done much to patch the hole...

That's all for now, have to get moving and run lots of pre-school errands. IF we can get the car started. Yay for the Kitts!

We're not in Kansas anymore.

The night before I left was one of good food and weighing bags. As expected, one came in at a slight 73#; needless to say I seem to have been spending the last two weeks taking things out of my bags before I even arrived at my destination!
Four am brought the big day forth. Trip to the airport was uneventful; and with a little more rearranging and removal of the last not absolutely necessary items, my bags were whisked away to that nothingness that exists behind the ticket counter.
Of course, I had to put everything super bulky in my carry-on bags...that included my textbooks, a week's worth of clothes, and some yarn. Forty-five pounds doesn't seem like much, but when you are trying to lift it over your head (and your fellow plane mate's heads) into a tiny bin with no room to maneuver - it's enormous. I hit my fellow classmate (Matt) up for help boosting the bag over my head, what a first impression that made. The best part of the flight was when the rather overweight family (they required extra straps to buckle their belts) sitting across the isle from me sneered at me and haughtily joked that I should check that bag. Like my bag was the reason the plane would encounter problems (not their collective 900+ pounds).
There was a drop towards the end of the flight when my heart leaped into my throat, but we arrived in one piece. We were herded off the plane onto a rickety metal stairway that lead to the blacktop (didn't think of THAT when we decided my carry-ons should be the heavy stuff) and a huge wave of humidity just blanketed us!! Crazy bad, and I'm born/raised in Florida.
Matt and I looked around at this jungle of an island and thought "what have we gotten ourselves into?" They ushered us into the immigration lines, where a nice gentleman glanced at my paperwork and sent me on my way.
Matt and I made our way downstairs to the baggage claim where it appeared some luggage monster had regurgitated a gazillion bags that were all black. After gathering our collective 10 bags we flagged down a baggage guy who loaded all ten (not joking) onto a mere hand cart and guided us through customs. Outside our bags were 'delicately' dropped in a corner on the curb to await the baggage truck for transport to the dorms. And by transport, I mean being overloaded onto a tiny pick-up truck and tied down with ropes.

The question is: do people loose more bags due to the airlines or the post-flight transport?

Meanwhile Matt and I were introduced to about 10 people in 2 minutes, ending with our orientation leader Kelly. She's a real character, very sweet and funny. Good match with our "brother" group run by Matt, who is also sweet but a bit more taciturn.
Once all of our group (and Matt's) arrived, we were loaded onto what can only be described as a mini-bus named "The Olympian" - complete with Olympic logo on the back window. It seems the public taxis here are all mini-buses, and it's similar to owning a boat - all are named, and decorated appropriately for the name. Kelly says you can live on this island for years and every once in a while you'll see one you never saw before. And to top it all off - our driver is named Mr. Rogers. Who can't be instantly soothed when they are met at the airport by a Kittian version of one of your childhood memories?

The Olympian. In all it's glory.

As we are getting ready to leave the airport, one of the baggage handlers comes running towards the bus, sticks his head in and starts yelling for the person who had all of the boxes (one of the couples had shipped their stuff early in about 8 large boxes). The husband stands up and comes forward, asks if there was something wrong with their things. The baggage handler states very simply that they had not received their tip. He hits this guy up for $15, as he has to pay the other guy who helped as well. Our student pulls out a $20US, asking for change (second mistake, first one being letting the guy make the decision on the amount of tip). A Ross leader comes over and begins to berate the luggage guy for scamming the students; meanwhile the luggage guy grabs the money and takes off as fast as he can. What a trip! Good thing my mother always made a good example on how to travel in a foreign country!